


closed off from love

by coffeeraid



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: maleo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28309893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeraid/pseuds/coffeeraid
Summary: The attraction between them had always been there. But they had no idea what to do with it. Theo thinks that he can keep it under control. Malia believes that she can keep it hidden from the rest. But when has it ever been that easy? (Set in seasons 5B to 6 but with more Malia/Theo)
Relationships: Theo Raeken/Malia Tate
Kudos: 8





	1. stuck

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is supposed to be. I want to make this a short story. Maybe explore a bit of Theo/Malia in the settings of seasons 5-6. But I don't want to get too ahead of myself, since I really don't have the best track record when it comes to finishing stories. Still, I hope to pursue this for another 2 short chapters. This ship really had some untapped potential. *sigh*

**closed off from love.**

**ch 1. stuck**

She wasn't sure what this meant. Frankly, Malia didn't even care. With the whole Dread Doctors and La Bete fiasco going on in everyone's minds, the last thing she wanted to do was to add on to their concerns and troubles. Malia swears she doesn't need that – doesn't want that. She wasn't sure who would even understand, truth be told. Would Stiles offer a condescending remark, mouth agape at the very thought that _guys, look I told you this was bad news,_ the minute she revealed this? Would Scott look at her with disappointment, his eyebrows frowned in a quizzical look, her name spoken in a disbelieving whisper, _Malia_? Maybe Lydia would press her lips shut and stare at her with those wide, all-knowing eyes, slightly sympathetic considering how her situation with Peter many moons ago could've turned out the same way – _could've_. Or would she be bombarded with Kira's persistent questions, _Malia, look it isn't the end of the world_ , which would probably be accompanied with a sensible alternative that would've made her felt worse? Malia shook her head. Any of those scenarios would suck if they happened – and if she told them, they would happen.

She wanted advice. Actual, wholesome, fruitful advice. But the closest thing she had to a parent was the Sheriff. Boy, did she not want to make things even more awkward with the last authoritative figure in her life. Her dad, although better these days, still drowned his sorrows with alcohol and sleeping. On the rare occasions that he would be sober enough to move forward with his life, he'd help his neighbors with a brute errand or two. Malia wanted no parts of that; not the helping-out-your-neighbors bit, but dealing with her dad. It was too much. The issues were too much: underlying and overlooked, but every bit as painful.

Peter was out of the question. That was a chapter she wasn't even sure on how to begin. Calculus would be easier than talking to Peter Hale! It's not that he didn't try, but he was every bit as awkward and closed off as she was. It had to be a Hale thing, because her mother's side of the family sure had no qualms when it came to expressing her disgust at Malia's bare existence. Speaking of, _she has been awfully silent lately, I need to get Braeden to check on her_ , Malia pondered briefly.

See what she meant about the lack of parental advice? She was fucked –

"I have a feeling you're not enjoying this today," Theo commented with a low laugh, as he laid on his side watching her stare at the ceiling for the past five minutes.

– Literally and figuratively.

Malia blinked, not removing her gaze. "Just thoughts," she offered curtly.

"Thoughts about what? The Dread Doctors?"

She looked at him this time, her words tart. "About how driving lessons ended up becoming fucking ones."

Theo let out a deep laugh, his perfect teeth shining – _no, literally shining_ – against the darkness of the room. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed, albeit slightly. He sighed softly in response; the smile still stuck on his face.

Malia looked back at the ceiling; she knew looking at him for too long would make a smile slide across her face as well. She often wondered what exactly was their relationship. Was it just fucking? She didn't think it was; they wouldn't have stayed back with each other after the deed was done. Like now: they're lying around, throwing jabs at each other, hating each other even – but leaving was out of the question.

"Where are your parents?"

"What is Scott gonna do?"

They spoke at the same, looking at each other again. She saw that he was on her back now, head turned towards her in surprise. So, she replaced her position with his old one.

"Where did that come from?" His mind is racing, she can tell. But he tried to play it cool. He wouldn't be Theo Raeken if he didn't.

"Just wondering. Why don't they care that they can probably hear a howling coyote outside their house every night? Or that the backdoor creaks loudly twice every night? Or that –"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Theo sat up, running a hand through his messy hair. He looked down at the sheets pooled around his waist. "They don't care." He looked back at her, waiting. Honestly, he could have said a million other excuses that would have been better than these words that just came out. But he didn't. Theo knew that it was deliberate. He didn't want to say anything else; and _that_ had nothing to do with him getting tired of his own fabulous manipulative skills. Would she have believed that he didn't want to lie about this? Would she have cared?

She frowned at his response, obviously curious to know more. But she nodded after a second, and closed her eyes. The more she found out, the more she would have to lie about.

He looked at her and realized how much he hated this. Indifference. Loyalty. _Scott_. He had Malia – the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen, the fiercest girl he had ever seen, the only other _coyote_ he had ever seen – right here on his bed, naked, vulnerable, and freshly fucked; and all he could think about was how meaningless this could become. She didn't care about his my-parents-don't-love-me bullshit – wait, scratch that, she _did_ care, he heard it in her heartbeat; but he knew she didn't press it further because of her loyalty to her pack. Theo scoffed loudly at that. The pack led by an alpha who cared more about morality than about winning; about friends than power; about loyalty than impulse.

"What?" she got up slowly, letting the sheets fall down carelessly. She looked silently at the man in front of her – troubled, quiet, _hers_.

His gaze sauntered to her bare chest and then to her eyes, wide and brown and angry. He was angry too. "You didn't tell me. What is Scott planning to do with the big bad werewolf running loose in town?"

"Seriously, Theo?"

His jaw clenched at the challenging tone. He could see that she was starting to get defensive. Hell, she _had_ been defensive the entire day. He saw it when she talked with Stiles in the quad today, animated and terse. He saw it when she walked away from that conversation and checked her phone immediately. He saw it when she looked at it for a second and shoved it back into her pocket. And he saw it when he drove her here after the library had cleared out and kissed her on her favorite area. He thought he had managed to snap her out of it.

"No, seriously Theo. You think that just because I'm sleeping with the enemy, I'm supposed to reveal everything too? Like a fucking spy?" Evidently, he was wrong.

"I'm not the bad guy here, Malia," he drew out her name just like she did his. "I'm not some fucking dark evil that needs to be dragged to Hell just because I don't think that your fucking alpha here has the balls to do what he should have been doing all this while." He pushed back verbally, cold eyes meeting his own. "We could be doing this together. Us against them."

_Us against them_.

She was stunned. And he was shocked. Their collective anger fucked right off in that second. The implication behind those words was colossal. It wasn't supposed to be that way. Us against them.

"Pack against the beast," he offered lamely. But he knew he was too late. For the second time that night, he waited for her response. His heartbeat was steady, and hers was erratic. But why did he feel like he was the one who couldn't breathe? _Malia. Say something._

Malia sat there, unmoving, save for her mouth which opened and shut twice abruptly. It would've been funny, but this was no laughing matter. She brought her hands to lap, entwining them and then gripping the sheets beneath them. And she looked down; aware that time was passing. It felt like hours, but the clock on the bedside proved it had only been seconds.

She was never good with emotions. She was never human enough to allow her emotions to mature. So she normally resorted to doing things that animals would do. Have sex with Stiles in a creepy madhouse. Offer to leave people behind when in trouble. Ready to kill her problems away. But Theo looked at her, and she knew that she had to say something, anything.

"Us against them," she whispered back. And Theo thought that was a fucked up cop-out. But it was better than indifference. Better than loyalty to her pack – to her alpha.

He moved forward to kiss her intently, and she reciprocated instantly. Hands roaming over each other, lips mashing against in earnest, and she pushed him down, legs straddling over him.

"Malia, this thing – that thing out there is bigger than this shit, and the sooner that we come together –" he rushed out, racing against a feeling he couldn't make sense of. Like the time was running out, like he needed to make things right before it got too far.

"We're coming together right now, Theo. Let me. Let me come together with you," Malia panted breathlessly against his ear. It was too late. Time had run out; things had gotten too far.

They were doomed, he thought. He flipped their positions, slightly pushing the bed due to their weights, and entered her, slowly and determinedly. She held his face, eyes transfixed on the beauty in front of her. "We fight the beast, Theo, and then we fight this."

He smiled into her mouth. Until the beast is dead, he had time.


	2. resolve

**ch 2. resolve**

Malia bent down to tie her boots, her short hair sticking to her forehead. She was glad she cut it short. The long hair reminded her too much of her mom – her _actual_ mom: feminine, nurturing, human. All the qualities that Malia herself wasn't – and would never be. The pain cut deep even though it had been years, even though she understood the circumstances more clearly now. Time doesn't heal all.

Her thoughts were disturbed – _thankfully_ – by Braeden constantly clicking and checking her guns. She stood up straight and looked at her newest ally. She didn't know much about the U.S. Marshall, or if she even was one to be honest. But something about Malia's plight seemed to draw the aggressive – and, so, _so_ hot – woman into helping her.

During the dull evenings in Stiles' bedroom, back when they were still friends – _were we ever friends?_ she questioned, _we never had the time to talk about anything that mattered_ , _we wouldn't be like this with each other if we did_ – back then, Stiles used to fill her in with stories of the pack's allies, in the convoluted, rambling way that he was famous for. More often than not, Braeden's name would pop out almost every time there was a Hale situation. Mostly, Derek situations.

She often thought about how life would be if everything was _normal_ – and better. Perhaps Derek would not have had to bear the burden of losing everyone around him – she briefly thought about Paige – _first love: you remember what that's like?_ Malia thought about the time she overheard Theo and Scott at the clinic. She would never admit it, but Scott's response to the offhanded comment stayed with her for days. She believed that losing in love had to come with being an alpha. Perhaps Derek would have calmed the storms in his heart with Braeden and her all-knowing ways of persuasion and self-defense, just like Scott seemed to balance himself with Kira these days. Tough against tough; noble against noble. Maybe opposites were overrated.

Perhaps Peter would have been a better everything – a better uncle, a better alpha, a better dad. She could see a lot of herself in Peter: rough, unbounded, angry. But she knew his weakest link when she didn't even know hers. He would vehemently deny it if she ever told him, closing off his demeanor even further, but she knew how much he cared for his nephew. Peter was ruled by his self-preservation instincts – but the driving force had always been Derek. She didn't know her cousin much – hell, she didn't know _anybody_ much; little outsider that she was. But she knew, she felt, the connection. Even at their worst, Peter loved Derek.

The thought made her heart stop for a tiny bit. She was jealous. She was truly a little outsider, wasn't she?

"Hey, if you feel weird about this, we can stop. You know that, right?" Braeden's voice shook her out of her morose monologue. She stood in front of the tall Hale girl; one eyebrow tilted slightly. Malia could see the faded slashes on the skin of her neck, and she understood that what she had to do was way bigger than her menial wishes for normalcy. When life gives you the Desert Wolf, you kill it before it kills you.

"I want to do this," she resolved. The two women met each other's gaze and Braeden knew she was bullshitting. "No, you don't."

Malia opened her mouth to defend herself.

"No, you don't, and you won't. We will go out there today and talk to him. I'll give you that. But anything that happens after – it's my problem." Braeden cut her off, walking back towards the dining table which had a heavy bag lying atop it.

"What? No. _No._ The Desert Wolf is going to kill _me_. _I_ have to be the one to stop her. Braeden, this ends with me." She paced to the other end of the table, palms resting on top of it.

Braeden cocked an eyebrow at her wordlessly.

"Please," she added in a calmer tone. Damn. Braeden _would've_ been good for Derek. Tough against tough; calm against storm.

"It's insane. You're really want blood on your hands? Kill your family?"

"She's not family. And I already killed mine because of her," she gritted out. She had always wanted to ask Peter what made him _be_ with such a merciless psychopath. But engaging in a heart-to-heart with Peter was never an option; and it's not like she had much of a leg to stand on anyway.

Braeden simply shrugged back in response, seemingly deciding to end the conversation then as she picked up the bag and started walking out of the cheap motel room she had booked. "Let's go. We need to be quick if we want anything out of him."

Malia pressed her lips together; unhappy with the response. She needed to convince her. She followed her out of the room, locking it behind her, and took out her phone from her pocket.

She sent out a short text: _I'm going to talk to him. I need you at the clinic tonight. No pack._ She meant what she said. This was going to end with her.

* * *

Theo's mind was racing a mile a minute since the morning. His conversations with Malia had been tense since the past few days. His plan wasn't going his way either thanks to his imbecile pack of misguided teenagers. This was not good at all, and he needed to find a way to fix this.

"Look, I don't know what's going on with you, but if you want me to believe that you're in the pack, I need to be able to trust you," he gritted out sharply at Hayden. They were standing in their make-shift den in the tunnels. The rest of them stared at the two, curious and defeated. Curious because they had no idea what their alpha planned to do next – and knowing him, whatever it was, wasn't going to be good. Defeated because they had no idea what their alpha wanted out of them – everything seemed to fail, and either he was way in over his head dealing with the beast, or he simply couldn't trust them enough to help execute whatever it was that he wanted.

Hayden resisted rolling her eyes, but looked sideways at the wall. She felt like a teenager being scolded by her parents for sneaking out with her boyfriend. "You can trust me."

He stared at her for a hard minute before speaking, "I better. Because you're going to be the zoo-keeper. Make sure our little animal doesn't wander off."

His phone buzzed then. He read the text quickly and inhaled deeply. Maybe this could work after all. "Stay here," he ordered Hayden. Nodding his head at the rest, he walked out, his little pack trailing behind.

"Where are we going, Theo?" Josh asked, receiving a glare from Tracy. He thought it was fucking hilarious that she wanted to be the Harley to his alpha's Joker. _The guy killed his fucking sister. You can't seriously believe this has a happy ending,_ he asked her once.

Theo paused his movement, turning his head slightly, and smirked. "To catch a blind alpha."

* * *

Scott breathed heavily, words struggling to come out in full sentences as he glanced at his best-friend beside him who looked at him quizzically. "I knew, sooner or later, one of us was going to get a little too much blood on our hands," he confessed.

His strongest asset had shattered ever since Theo entered into their lives; and so did his confidence. His pack. His family. The only things that were important to him had broken all due to a few lies set up by Theo. Yet Scott placed a major chunk of the blame on himself – _like always_. He _should've_ been a better alpha, he _should've_ seen it coming, he _should've_ listened to his best friend.

Losing a member of your pack felt like losing a limb – and he knew how decapitated he felt when that happened. He lost his entire pack and he died in return. _I should've seen it coming._

Stiles opened his mouth to retaliate, to offer words of assurance, but somewhere deep down, he knew that it wouldn't be of use: Scott would always place the burden of failures on his own shoulders, and Stiles wasn't sure if their friendship was the same as it was _before_ to alleviate a bit of his best friend's burden.

"I half-thought it was going to be Malia," Scott continued, half-jokingly.

Hearing about his ex-girlfriend's plan to kill her mother soured Stiles. Shrugging back, he quipped, "Well, she definitely seems like she's working on it." Scott had told him how he smelled Braeden's motorcycle outside Malia's old home. Stiles knew that Malia had been putting up a false bravado when she erased the name from his board. He had wanted to probe her for more details, but their relationship had never been built on care. He helped her stay human, she helped him forget Lydia. Stiles wasn't blind to Lydia's growing attraction to the new Deputy, and he didn't feel like competing with a guy who was _literally_ hot as hell. It was what it was.

Scott, on the other hand, was worried. He cared about Malia. He knew that she was way in over her head with the Desert Wolf. He knew she needed someone to talk to – and if she didn't want her alpha's help at the moment, he would help her as her friend.

* * *

Malia growled in frustration, shutting the drawer loudly. This was bad. Scott would never forgive her. Well, he definitely _would_ , but she didn't want to disappoint him in any way. Anyone else and she wouldn't have given it a second thought. But there was a reason why he became a True Alpha: he drew in people through the power of his soul and she'd be damned if she numbed even a tiny part of his soul through her actions – apart from sleeping with Theo, _obviously_ , but she believed she had _that_ covered.

"Can't find him, can you? Probably don't even know where to start."

She jumped slightly. Sneering back, she said, "I didn't call you here so that you can gloat. How'd you know about Deaton anyway?"

Theo circled around the bed, smirking back on purpose. "I have my ways."

"It's the Desert Wolf. I'm going to kill her." She felt like she had to convince herself more than him.

He wasn't done gloating though. The power rush of knowing that he was so close to where he wanted to be rendered him into this cocky state of wanting to push her buttons. She had been so out of it the past few days – and he wanted to punish her: punish her for not being his, punish her for being against them. "Let's be honest – you wouldn't," he shrugged, and then, "he's probably already dead. I wonder what's gonna happen when Scott realizes that it's your fault?"

 _Ding-ding_ , the winning shot. And, if looks could kill, he'd be a dead bastard now. Malia snarled at him loudly, eyes glowing yellow, and fangs piercing out, ready to kill. She pounced at him wildly, grabbing him in a choke-hold against the wall. "Maybe I should kill _you_."

He let out a chuckle, teeth baring. He's enjoying this too much. "You want to, but you won't. You like me too much. You fuck me too – "

He didn't get to finish the rest. Before he knew it, he felt his jaw pretty much break. He was relentless. Smirking even harder, he tasted blood as she pushed him on the floor, wincing at every blow she threw at him.

Malia seethed; she knew it had been his plan to rile her. But she didn't want to stop. Braeden's doubts, Scott's offer to help, her own anger at constantly being two steps behind – she was going crazy, and she needed this outlet. It wasn't her fault Beacon Hills didn't offer MMA classes.

Theo decided he allowed her to wind down enough. "Look, I can help you find them. Deaton and the Desert Wolf," he coughed, meeting her gaze.

Her eyes cooled back down to its normal color, but she continued to keep him pinned beneath her. "How?"

"There is a way. But I'm only telling you if you let me come with."

"No. There's no way. Braeden is coming with me." Malia ground out.

He was internally surprised by the information of her new ally. He thought for a minute, looking coolly into her eyes. _Minor glitch, but lesser the people beside Scott at the end of the day, the better_ , he resolved. Slowly moving his right hand from where it was on the floor to rest on her thigh, he stroked her skin softly. "Convince her, Malia, and I'll let you kill her."

She exhaled heavily, determined.


End file.
